Real Salt Lake Announces Stadium Site

Stucki · 10-13-2005, 07:54 AM

Real Salt Lake today announced the location of their new soccer specific stadium in the Salt Lake suburb of Sandy. RSL CEO Dean Howes started the proceedings by recapping some of the teams off field accomplishments from the past year. Starting from the ground up, the team has grown from zero employees to thirty, from zero sponsors to 55, and from zero ticket holders to over 5, 000.

RSL owner and founder Dave Checketts formally announced the stadium site on 22 acres near the intersection of 9400 S. and State St. The land is currently empty and will be sufficient space for a 25,000-seat stadium with roofed seating, surrounded by practice fields and a training facility. The complex will also include fountains and open space with additional development to come around the stadium. Checketts said that the team would not be involved in the commercial development, but would bid that out. Additional property around the site may soon become part of the plan depending upon other property owners. Sandy’s location in the middle of the valley was emphasized as well as the family oriented community in keeping with RSL’s family friendly philosophy.

Utah governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr. added that the vision of the stadium makes the Salt Lake Valley a better community, and also lauded the organization for its connection with the community. Sandy mayor Tom Dolan cited the need for a focal point as a gathering place in the suburbs, and Utah Senate President John Valentine welcomed RSL to Salt Lake and announced that we now had a permanent home for soccer in SLC.

Major League Soccer COO Mark Abbot added that the new stadium site was part of a league emphasis of building stadium in an effort to grow the game in this country and announced that the new stadium would likely host international friendlies and World Cup qualifying games in the future.

RSL captain Jason Kreis compared the announcement to his time in Dallas when Pizza Hut Park was announced and talked about how exciting it was for players to see the plans for the stadium. Kreis also emphasized how important it was for the team to have training facilities that they could control as well as having a softer grass field to practice on.

Now that the land is under contract the team can now move on from conceptual drawings and plan actual details of the stadium and surrounding complex. The architectural firm responsible for the Home Depot Center will design the new RSL stadium.

SoccerPrime · 10-13-2005, 07:58 AM

Great recap.
Thank you for writing that all down.

Sounds very exciting.
Too bad I missed Kreis speaking, that would have been very cool.

mckid · 10-13-2005, 08:40 AM

Jason didn't actually speek to everyone. He made his remarks in the one-on-one interviews afterwards.

I might be able to get the audio file, if you would like.

SoccerPrime · 10-13-2005, 08:42 AM

Thats would be great McKid.
Thanks.

Aerick · 10-13-2005, 11:48 AM

I understand that portions of it were on Fox last night as well. Perhaps Merrill could get an electronic copy and post it somewhere?